Sunday, May 4, 2008

Rewatchability: The Dunder Mifflin Org-Chart

I watch too much television and one of my favorite shows is The Office. One of the things I like about this show is that I can watch it again and again and find new things that make me laugh. One example of why came when I noticed something interesting about a recent episode.

In one scene, they show the office's organizational chart. I had to pause the action to catch all of the jokes. The women of the office for example, all have little icons to denote their gender and whether or not they have reached menopause, and are connected by pink dotted lines which supposedly denote their menstrual cycles. That last part was explained by Dwight who drew up the org-chart but the rest has to be seen to be believed. More little jokes abound in the chart. Oscar, who is gay has two little interconnected male symbols by his name. Creed Bratton, who has a reputation for being sleazy, has his name in quotes—implying that this is not his real name. Toby, the HR rep, has a Star of David by his name which implies he's Jewish. The two black men in the office, Stanley and Darryl have black power fists by their names. And Kevin has what appears to be a four leaf clover by his name.

This is hardly a new thing, cartoons like The Simpsons and Futurama have always had visual jokes that only appear on the screen for a fraction of a second. But these little things help keep me entertained and I suspect that I'm not alone in this regard.